Blog Posts

One question that disturbs us in Numbers 10 is, what is the name of Moses’ father-in-law? Numbers 10:29 (ESV) says, “Moses said to Hobab the son of Reuel the Midianite, Moses’ father-in-law…” This section is very confusing. The meaning in the Recovery Version that we are reading is “Hobab, the father-in-law of Moses, is the son of Reuel the Midianite,” because Judges 4:11 mentions “Hobab, the father-in-law of Moses.” But when I first read it, I felt like “Moses’ father-in-law is Reuel, and he has a son named Hobab.” One person at the meeting said that this understanding was not consistent with Judges 4:11. It seems to her that the father of Hobab, Moses’ father-in-law, was called Reuel. But I said that when Exodus 2:18 was talking about Moses had helped to water the flock of the daughters of a Midianite priest in the wilderness, it was mentioned that their father’s name was “Reuel”. This proves that Reuel is not Moses’ grandfather, but rather Moses’ father-in-law himself. When Exodus 3:1 mentions Moses’ father-in-law, the name used is “Jethro”.

Numbers 9 tells two stories. In the first story, the Lord was telling Moses to let the Israelites celebrate the Passover, and He answered Moses’ question about whether the Israelites could still celebrate the Passover since they were ceremonially unclean because of a dead body, and were away on a journey (Numbers 9:1-14, NIV). The Lord said that even if they were unclean because of a dead body or were away on a trip, they could still celebrate the Passover (Numbers 9:10, NIV). But if a man who was ceremonially clean and not on a journey failed to celebrate the Passover, that person must be cut off from his people (Numbers 9:13, NIV). A foreigner residing among the Israelites could also voluntarily celebrate the Passover.

Numbers 5 contains three stories. The first story is about Jehovah instructing Moses to send away all people with leprosy from the camp. In the next story, Jehovah is instructing Moses to let the Israelites offer up sacrifices for their sins and offenses. The third story is about Jehovah telling Moses how to deal with the problem of a husband suspecting that his wife was unfaithful.